hmen, Italians and Austrians--are, as a rule, all of
one mind as to the principles of international law.

"This is what makes it possible to proclaim an international
law of war, approved by the legal conscience of all civilised
peoples; and when a principle is thus generally accepted, it
exerts an authority over minds and manners which curbs sensual
appetites and triumphs over barbarism. We are well aware of
the imperfect means of causing its decrees to be respected and
carried out which are at the disposal of the law of nations.
We know also that war, which moves nations so deeply, rouses
to exceptional activity the good qualities as well as the evil
instincts of human nature. It is for this very reason that the
jurist is impelled to present the legal principles, of the
need for which he is convinced, in a clear and precise form,
to the feeling of justice of the masses, and to the legal
conscience of those who guide them. He is persuaded that his
declaration will find a hearing in the conscience of those
whom it principally concerns, and a powerful echo in the
public opinion of all countries.

"The duty of seeing that international law is obeyed, and of
punishing violations of it, belongs, in the first instance, to
States, each within the limits of its own supremacy. The
administration of the law of war ought therefore to be
intrusted primarily to the State which wields the public power
in the place where an offence is committed. No State will
lightly, and without unpleasantness and danger, expose itself
to a just charge of having neglected its international duties;
it will not do so even when it knows that it runs no risk of
war on the part Of neutral States. Every State, even the most
powerful, will gain sensibly in honour with God and man if it
is found to be faithful and sincere in respect and obedience
to the law of nations.

"Should we be deceiving ourselves if we admitted that a belief
in the law of nations, as in a sacred and necessary authority,
ought to facilitate the enforcement of discipline in the Army
and help to prevent many faults and many harmful excesses? I,
for my part, am convinced that the error, which has been
handed down to us from antiquity, according to which all law